Essay, PART 1: Why taildraggers are tricky and how to overcome it!

I've made about 50 or so landing attempts in the spitfire I'd guess. Still haven't had a successful one, generally end up tipping onto the right wing tip after rolling out about 50-100 yards. What seems to happen is the plane will start to swerve right and the left rudder input is just enough to tip it over. I figure I'm doing something fundamentally wrong the same every time, just haven't figured it out yet. Fortunately for me the plane is never damaged and I can take off again right away for another attempt. Take off is no problem now!!

The trick in landing, if you can call that a trick, is like in all TDs, one must try to keep the aeroplane absolutely straight, no drift or slip at all, and I mean at all. Even the slightest drift or slip while you plant your wheels on ground will result in an uncontrollable swerve as she's willing to due to CoG out of alignment with your displacement vector. The thing in a simulator is one has to learn to watch those really subtle clues that mean you're indeed drifting or slipping. With the Spitfire that is even more troubling than others due to narrow landing gear while P-51 or 190 have a wide landing gear that eases the manoeuvre (though they still are TDs, you know). Then, once on ground with a good alignment, the problem will be the same as taxi, but with a higher speed and having to brake safely, that's a different story related with OP by ChiefInstructor. Anyway, while airborne and on final approach, it's a good thing to play pedals in order to find the correct alignment of the ship like on ground, as explained in OP.

 

Good luck.

 

 

S!

Superbly explained :clap_2::clap_2::clap_2:.

 

Hope some people out there having concerns about fidelity just because they cannot deal with tail draggers have a look at this so they finally get to know how to manage it :thumbup: .

 

 

Thank you very much for the read.

 

In sims taildragers seem easier to me than the tricycle gear planes like P39. It is easier to damage the gear and tail to me.

I totally agree about VR, I have only ever played DCS with VR, and when trying to do some mission making for the Spitfire, I was playing in 2d, and I could not for the life of my take off without quickly smashing into the ground. I do not usually (sometimes i get overzealous) in VR, much more obvious control and a better reaction time when you feel like you are really sitting in the pit.

Although I understand your point of view and I personally am not a pilot. I have to disagree with parts of your essay.

In the time I have had DCS, I have had 3 A10 pilots come here and try it. One of them a retired instructor stationed at DMAFB who flew with a couple of P-51 pilots, and I had 2 Vietnam Huey pilots fly the DCS Huey.

Although these are not tail dragger aircraft, all 5 of the people who have come here and tried DCS all agree that it's pretty amazing and that the visual aspect of it and design is very close to where it should be. And I myself having flown in Hueys in the early 1980's while in the military, can also add limited input. All 5 of them said that the sim is much harder than RL for 3 reasons: 1. no sensation 2. no peripheral vision 3. no freedom of movement. 3 of the 5 told me that feel is a big part of the whole experience. And I myself remember the sensation of taking off in a Huey, ascending and descending, and movements that the pilot was making that caused me to lean one way or the other or hold on. That whole experience is just not there in any simulator that's PC based.

I can further say that I fly other PC sims as well, and I was privileged enough to be asked to fly several professional level simulators at a company called Arizona Flight Safety here in Tucson several years ago. I am absolutely convinced that flying a $40,000,000 simulator with hydraulics, that gave me the sensation of lift and descent made the piloting experience so much easier. Even little things like trimming the AC could be easily felt my body and I reacted much quicker to the sensation.

Of the simulators they had was a Bell 400. At the time I was relatively new to PC flight sims and was not at all adept at any helicopter in any PC sim. When I sat in the simulator and started moving the collective, the sensation of lift was immediate and my feet just started moving as though it was instinct. You cannot get that feeling from a PC. I was able to take off, fly to an LZ and land without any incident and It was worlds easier than any PC sim that I had ever flown in.

So in my personal opinion, and from the people who I have actually sat here with and know have flown these AC, and from my own experience with professional simulators. I tend to be skeptical of the essay. Not of the advice your giving, but that PC sims are no harder than RL aircraft. That's not to say that you are wrong. It's just not been my experience.

I believe that in many cases, the experience is different for everyone.

 

 

Let me recant on something. The A10 pilots told me that it just was weird not having the sensations and it made it feel very unnatural. They did not say that it was particularly harder. The Huey pilots however did say that it was harder.

Edited December 19, 2016 by Zimmerdylan

I think he is not saying that forces, gravity, etc aren't meaningful in general. He is saying that for the very specific case of ground looping, due to the nature of the force being basically a pendulum you can't really afford to wait until you feel the lateral deviation to apply input or you will be late to the party, so you will have to predict when to do it.

 

Not in any other case in general. I am not a pilot, but it's the same thing when you drive a car and you get into a simulator, you massively overreact because you lack all the physics.

 

Of course, visual cues are a HUGE thing we lack unless you run VR.

Edited December 19, 2016 by The Legman

Thank You so much for the dance info.

What an enjoyable read !!!

Just wanted to point out to anyone flying tailwheels in DCS: Your flying in DCS will improve IMMENSELY (the other acft too) if you go get checked out in a tailwheel with a good CFI, such as a Piper Cub or Cub Clone.

 

It took about 9hrs with a CFI to get the cub more or less dialed in and ready to solo - I'd had training in tricycles a long time ago. If you spend the time and money on a few hours with a CFI to learn a REAL taildragger, when you climb back into DCS you will de-program yourself of bad habits you've learned in the simulator (trust me, you will have) and you will now know how to properly use the simulator to your benefit, and it will be MUCH more rewarding to fly DCS, taildraggers especially.

 

If you can learn to fly a Piper Cub, you can learn to fly the Bf-109 in DCS. If you can learn to fly the DCS 109, you can learn to fly probably... just about anything. My two pence.

Thanks for that, so it is hard, we're not rubbish....but will probably still be at it in late Jan lol

it's not hard but your skill as a pilot has to go up a notch to fly taildraggers, they invented nose wheels so mere mortals could fly too.

 

This Cessna advert really sums up nosegear...

 

Great read very informative.

In sims taildragers seem easier to me than the tricycle gear planes like P39. It is easier to damage the gear and tail to me.

 

The mustang is super easy to taxi thanks to the wide undercarriage so you avoid the ground looping problems immensely

I've finally figured out how to land the Spit! I thought that I was doing something fundamentally wrong with all of my previous attempts and I've figured out what my problems were. I changed 2 things- first I started using normal traffic pattern approaches, I had been practicing straight in approaches from about 2-3 miles out. Using the short final while turning into the runway REALLY helps to keep it in sight and makes it easier to line up properly. Secondly, I was not pulling the stick back after touchdown. Pulling the stick back really seemed to help. I guess it applies more force to the tail wheel to help keep it tracking properly? Landing this plane is fun once you get the hang of it!

Great read and a real eye-opener. Many thanks.

Thanks for this nice read, Chief Instructor (and for the second part too)! Really well written and informative! :thumbup:

 

Without trying to sound smart or something (haven't ever flown a real plane in my live), I knew about most of these things you mentioned, but nonetheless, it's extremely helpful to have them all nicely summed up and explained. Not to mention i did learn quite a few useful tips from your post!

 

About that "everything suddenly clicking into place", I know exactly what you mean. This same thing happened to me while learning the Huey. For the live of myself, I couldn't achieve a stable hover after liftoff - especially due to my poor work wiht anti-torque pedals. And then, after many failed tries, I came to my PC one day, started a mission, and out of al sudden, my feet did exactly what they were supposed to do, without me even thinking about it. Tell me about "wow" moment... ;)

 

I still have a very long way to go with the Spit (and who knows if I ever reach some degree of proficiency, given my "persistence" while learning new modules), but my takeoffs and landings are certainly getting better - at the beginning, they used to end in a tragic disaster, now they end just in a mild embarrasment :)

 

I feel that your posts have their share in this, so once again, thank you very much!

For interest, here is an excerpt from Stephan Bungay's The Most Dangerous Enemy, paraphrasing Plt Off Bob Doe, who flew Spitfires on 234 Sqn. during the Battle of Britain:

 

 

By the look of things, Bob Doe put on his dancing shoes... :smilewink: :pilotfly:

Brilliantly explained CFI

In a forum with many great posts, this is one of the best I've read in a good long while. Thank you very much for sharing your experience with us! :thumbup:

 

I don't have the Spit yet, but everything you said applies 100% to my experience in the other taildraggers I've flown in DCS.

Chief Instructor’s ‘Taildragger’ article is very informative – so I echo the many thanks for that. It has truly helped me to understand that there are many interactive elements that affect a TW aircraft while it’s moving with its gear still in contact with the ground.

 

In the Spit LF IX I was having awful issues in trying to take-off (& to land, once I managed to get airborne in a VERY ugly fashion). Chief Instructor’s brilliant article will definitely help me there, but there is something else in DCS that can be very important with respect to a successful take-off (I’m speaking as a relative ‘fledgling’).

 

I fly my A2A Spit IIB in FSX and my ED P-51D in DCS with no major issues, so I was getting quite despondent that I was failing so badly with the ED Spit LF IX (which I love dearly). Then it occurred to me that when I first got my Spit, before even attempting to fly it I had automatically set ‘Take-off assistance’ to 0….. (as I had done also for my P-51, which I fly OK).

Tho’ I hope to gradually reduce the ‘Assistance’ to 0, I now have it set at 50, and this has made an immense difference – I now take-off & land comfortably. In this post (or is it a ‘thread’? I’m rubbish with forums) I haven’t seen a reference to that particular setting, so am I in the minority to have such assistance – is it like… cheating? (I can’t remember for sure, but I think the default setting was 100…? Am I correct in this? If so, then maybe many are flying with 100 Assistance.....)

 

Just wanted to mention the 'Assistance' setting in case others had (like me) set it to 0 & promptly forgotten, causing similar dismay.

Good point about take-off assistance.

 

Except my findings with Fw-190 and Bf-109 were exactly opposite: By default, it was set to 50 or 100 IIRC, and only after I set it to 0 did the planes start to respond in a way I expected. Only half a dozen crashes later I was airborne for the first time. :D

Good point about take-off assistance.

 

Except my findings with Fw-190 and Bf-109 were exactly opposite: By default, it was set to 50 or 100 IIRC, and only after I set it to 0 did the planes start to respond in a way I expected. Only half a dozen crashes later I was airborne for the first time. :D

 

If (when you get it) you immediately set your Spit to 0 assistance as I did, hopefully you'll have less pain with it than I had (I guess my issues might also have come from control settings...? Before setting 50 assistance I fiddled with these, but it didn't help much.).

After getting the K4 and all its fame of being impossible to deal with, i found taxi and takeoff much easier than Spitfire so i guess there will be adjustments on early access. Currently feels like if the aircraft had no weight on ground, almost.

Here is a good video of the Spitfire "rudder dance" in action IRL. Watch the rudder camera angle during takeoff and landing. Lot's of fast corrections there :)

 

After getting the K4 and all its fame of being impossible to deal with, i found taxi and takeoff much easier than Spitfire so i guess there will be adjustments on early access. Currently feels like if the aircraft had no weight on ground, almost.

109 has a lockable tailwheel, that makes a huge difference.

Also what was mentioned in the original post, you learn to anticipate. That is basically true for each and every module to a degree.

At the moment it is much "easier" for me as well, to take off in the 109 as I am used to its quirks and movements...

 

After the Spitfire has enough training I guess it won't be much of a difference.

 

As the instructor said, it is to be expected, that this plane is a handful to handle. ;)

Brilliant post, CFI! I learned a few things.

 

It's funny: much of what you wrote about correcting and relaxing with taildraggers is the same advice I give to aspiring DCS helo drivers. I'll be sure to send them you your article as well.